


Lost Things

by FireflyAlchemist



Series: Conversations with Dead People [2]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Force Ghosts, Missing Scene, Obi-Wan tries not be sassy, Parental Obi-Wan, and fails, people being mean to Obi-Wan is my kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25871422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflyAlchemist/pseuds/FireflyAlchemist
Summary: After Vader cuts off Luke's hand, force ghost Obi-Wan appears to him and the two have a (somewhat civil) conversation.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker
Series: Conversations with Dead People [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877344
Comments: 9
Kudos: 154





	Lost Things

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with more Star Wars angst!

“Lord Vader.”

Vader looks up from the holopad on his desk to see an imperial officer standing in the doorway, saluting rigidly.

“The emperor is calling for you.”

Vader turns back to his desk. “I am in the middle of a task which cannot be interrupted.”

Besides his own breathing, the room is silent, so Vader hears when the man swallows nervously. “Sir—”

He speaks without looking up. “Perhaps you would like to be one to explain to the Emperor how the Jedi boy slipped through our fingers yet again? How we failed to recapture him after his escape from Cloud City?”

“N-no sir, of course not. I’ll inform the Emperor that you’re… unavailable.” The man backs out of the room, and Vader has no expectations of seeing him again. Even parsecs away Sidious holds power and this is not a message that he will be happy to receive, especially considering it is the second such message he will get in as many days.

There will not be a third.

There is little that is more dangerous in the galaxy than defying the wishes of Darth Sidious, but Vader must do it. He just needs more time to figure out how to frame the disastrous Bespin operation—what to reveal and what to keep hidden.

There are many things Darth Vader keeps hidden. His face, for one. Although it is true that his helmet helps keep him alive, it has long been understood by the Empire’s cybernetic technicians that a less… obtrusive breathing apparatus could be designed and it is by choice that the Emperor’s right hand keeps his face obscured by black metal.

Not unrelated to the mask of course, is the truth of his past. Who he was before he took on the mantle of a Sith lord. Anakin Skywalker is dead, it’s true, but it is through pure force of will that Vader keeps him that way. There are two reasons for this secret: the first is merely pragmatic. It is easy to forget that it has been only two decades since the ascension of the empire, and there are still those in the galaxy who remember the Jedi as heroes. Malcontents drinking in the spice-dens that dot the the outer rim and the elites of self-important planets like Alderaan (when it still existed, of course) who never believed the reports of a Jedi coup. It is from these dissatisfied wells that sprang the first hints of rebellion which grew into the coalition currently standing against the empire. It would not do to remind these people of Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear, even if his story ultimately ends in support of the empire. Whispers of Anakin Skywalker mean whispers of the Jedi, and whispers of the Jedi inevitably mean whispers of rebellion, just as assuredly as two suns will rise on Tatooine.

The second reason is that Vader knows that he will crumble if he ever allows himself to think that he and Skywalker are one and the same. If he is forced, everyday, to confront all that the foolish Jedi knight let slip through his fingers. No. Skywalker is dead, Vader lives, and that is the way it must be.

There are the more mundane things he keeps hidden from his subordinates—the boredom that comes with absolute power, the distaste for their bureaucratic ways paired somewhat paradoxically with a casual cruelty. How predictable they are. How human.

Then, there are the things which have the power to destroy him. The plans he is constantly formulating in his head to overthrow Sidious. Though it is expected of any Sith apprentice to plot to usurp the master, the expectation makes the thoughts no less treasonous. The thoughts he hadn’t dared to voice aloud until two days ago. Until he stretched out his hand and offered his son the opportunity to rule the galaxy side-by-side.

He can’t let himself think about the boy’s refusal.

Instead, he considers the repercussions that will follow if the offer ever gets back to his master—the torture and pain that will ensue. Quite possibly, his own demise. He is somewhat surprised to discover that the thought doesn’t bother him as much as it once would, until of course the nagging reminder that if he were dead it would leave no buffer between the boy and Sidious.

Vader is pulled out of his musings suddenly, as a disturbance ripples through the Force. It’s slight, hardly noticeable in fact, but it sends a shiver through Vader’s body.

“Hello,Anakin.”

Vader lifts his head. He recognizes that voice—amused and somewhat condescending all at once—so he is not entirely shocked to see his old master standing before him. No, the shock seeps in a moment later, when he remembers of course, that Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead, struck down by Vader himself. Immediately, he casts his eyes down to his arm and the control panel that rests there. He checks his oxygen levels, and then manually ensures that all functions of his mask are working properly. Too much or too little oxygen is known to lead to hallucinations after all.

“The least you could do is a greet an old friend, Anakin,” The Jedi master says wryly.

Finally, Vader looks up, having to admit to himself that his suit is operating perfectly. It is only then that he realizes that the Obi-Wan Kenobi standing before him is not the one he fought on the Death Star, but rather the young, red-haired man in his prime that he had been over two-decades before. In fact he looks just as he did when he was Anakin’s master and partner, waiting for his padawan to give some response after a scolding. Despite himself, Vader finds himself answering. “You’re not real,” he says gruffly, as though pointing it out will make the apparition disappear.

Obi-Wan chuckles. “Oh, I assure you, I’m quite real. Not as real perhaps as you, but certainly in all the ways that matter.”

“You’re dead,” Vader continues as though he hadn’t heard. “I cut you down myself.”

The Jedi master snorts. “Really Anakin, you can be bull-headed and self-aggrandizing but I thought even you would realize that light sabers can’t _vanish_ people.”

Vader stiffens at the implication of the words. That he hadn’t actually killed Obi-Wan, that somehow the Jedi had escaped. _Impossible_ , a voice in his head whispers. _I felt his life-force fade._

As though he could hear Vader’s thoughts, Obi-Wan sighs. “I am one with the Force if that’s what you mean. In fact, that’s what allows me to appear before you here. It’s a trick my old master discovered.”

 _Qui Gon,_ Vader thinks, and the name is accompanied by some lingering affection. The taint of the rest of the Jedi never fully managed to reach Qui Gon in Vader’s mind.

“My consciousness is here,” Obi-Wan continues. “Though I lack any physicality.”

 _“A ghost?”_ He hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, but knows he did when he hears his old master chuckle.

“I suppose ghost is one term for it.”

As though he didn’t have enough to deal with already—Sidious, the boy, the entirety of the rebellion—now he has the phantom of a disapproving Jedi general haunting him. “I suppose you’re here to exact your revenge?” he asks sarcastically, though he can’t deny some lurking concern over the Jedi’s intentions.

Obi-Wan sighs. “As always Anakin, you manage to underestimate everyone around you. I’m not here to punish you.”

“Your presence is punishment enough.” Vader winces as he can’t deny the way the words sound—like they were spoken by a petulant padawan.

Suddenly, the Jedi Master looks unbearably sad. “Is that what you truly believe, Anakin? That I’m here to torture you? Do you believe me capable of that?”

Vader hesitates before answering. _No_ , he realizes after a moment. He has spent too much time among the Imperials, their internal politics and petty vengeances. It is beginning to color his memories, and he has to remind himself that wrath was never a fault of the Jedi. No, their failings lay in a decidedly different track. Cold and unmovable, their complete rejection of emotions, the hypocrisy of their teachings. “No,” he must admit. “You’re here to judge me. To tell me all the ways I’ve failed.” It’s hard to say why this seems the worse option to him. After all, hasn’t he long forsaken the Jedi, forsaken Obi-Wan? Why should the man’s continued disapproval mean anything to him?

“Oh, Anakin…”

“That’s not my name!” Vader all but roars. He has had enough. He gets up from the table, moves to exit the room, blatantly walking through the ghost to do so. He is almost to the door when Obi-Wan speaks.

“It is the name your mother gave you.”

How is it that after all these years, after death itself, this man still knows the right words to manipulate him? Slowly, Vader turns around. “Anakin Skywalker is dead. He died a weak, pathetic death. I am Darth Vader.”

“Anakin—”

“You had no trouble addressing me as Vader the last time we met.” It’s calculated, reminding the man of their previous meeting. Vader had been in control then—utterly unflappable.

As if in resignation, the ghost lets out a sigh. “There were other people to consider then.”

 _Luke_. Though Obi-Wan makes no mention of the boy’s name, Vader knows that it must have been for his son’s benefit that the old Jedi stooped to using his Sith moniker. To preserve the secret—to keep the boy hidden from Vader. An anger he has not felt in years courses through his veins—he can feel it, energizing his flesh. “Ah yes, you needed to maintain the lie you told my son.”

“ _Your_ son?” Obi-Wan says mildly. “I thought Anakin Skywalker was dead.”

“You told him that I killed his father.” The true crime Obi-Wan committed is too large for Vader to articulate. The Jedi master had stolen his son, stolen the last piece of Padmé left in the galaxy and taken him to Tatooine—that desert wasteland that haunted so many of Vader’s memories. Tactically of course, he could see the move for what it was: brilliant. What other planet after all was outside of the empire’s control, and yet so despised by Darth Vader as to ensure that he never stepped foot there? What other planet, despite the Sith’s hatred of it and its refusal to bend to the empire, would never be in danger of being bombarded, attacked, or suffering the same grim fate as Alderaan? Only Tatooine—cemented in Vader’s mind as a place filled with pain and suffering and yet, untouchable as the place he met his wife, the place they fell in love, the final resting place of his mother. It was uniquely safe from his touch. Obi-Wan was as clever as ever, and that cleverness had condemned Vader’s son to the absolute last life in the galaxy Vader would’ve wanted for him. It is ridiculous that this betrayal hurts Vader, after all this time, but that doesn’t change the ache he feels in his bones.

“At the time I believed the sentiment to be true.”

“Not anymore?” The words slip out of Vader’s mouth before he can stop them.

Obi-Wan sighs. “It is so easy to think of things in binaries. life and death, light and dark, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. But the Force exists solely as it is—it is us who apply the labels.”

Vader chuckles. The sound is rough and there is no humor to it. “Still speaking in riddles, Jedi.”

“Anakin Skywalker is not dead—he is lost.” Obi-Wan says simply. “And lost things can always be found.”

Vader forces himself to turn back around but he can’t make himself walk through the door. He feels the same pull he did so many years before, whenever Obi-Wan was being was being particularly intractable, arguing with his padawan about some aspect of the code, lecturing him about the importance of letting his emotions go. The intense desire to have the last word. “It doesn’t matter what you say. I am Darth Vader and I have power you cannot imagine. I will rule the galaxy and you will be nothing but a lingering mist, a half-forgotten memory. Incorporeal and powerless.”

There is a momentary pause before Obi-Wan speaks. “And where will Luke be, when you rule the galaxy?”

Again Vader is struck by the similarity in Obi-Wan’s tone to a time long ago, when he was trying to lead his padawan to a certain answer, a certain truth.

Vader turns back around and meets his old master’s gaze head on. Grey-blue eyes connect with black metal. “By my side.”

“He won’t be, Anakin.” The ghost takes a step forward, and his hand raises slightly, as though he means to comfort Vader. “I don’t say this out of malice but out of honesty. The boy was not made for the dark side.”

“He is my son!”

“There is more of Padmé in his personality, I think, than there is of you.” The Jedi’s next words are quiet. “Please believe me when I tell you that your quest to turn him will tear him apart. He’ll die before he falls.”

Vader wants to argue, but how can he? Had he not seen the same thing in the boy’s eyes? Had he not seen the compassion, the quiet force of his dead wife? Is that not why he had let the boy go, tumbling down the chute when it would have been so easy to pull him back? The matter of a flicked wrist—a trick of the Force even a youngling could manage. Is it not the very fear that has kept him from contacting his master for days?

“You asked me why I appeared to you, Anakin.” Obi-Wan continues. “I came to apologize.”

There is nothing in the galaxy the Jedi could have said which would have shocked Vader more.

The ghost seems to hesitate, and Vader is struck by what a strange look it is on him. Obi-Wan had always been confident in life—though calculating and careful, hesitation was foreign to him. “I wish you could get to know him, Anakin.”

 _Luke_.

“He is so like his mother—always the peacekeeper, the mediator.” A small smile makes its way across the Jedi’s face. “But there is some of you there as well. Your passion and stubbornness. You would be proud of him, I think. Even now, even like this, I think you would be proud.”

Vader can’t speak. His mind flashes through everything he’s missed, every memory he was never able to experience. Holding his newborn son in his arms. Watching him grow up. Teaching him to pilot a ship. They are endless—and he watches them flicker through his head like a holoreel.

There is a mist in Vader’s mind. It is as though he has been walking through it for twenty years and has just noticed its presence.

“I’m so sorry, Anakin.” The ghost bows his head. “I was not the master you deserved.”

In his mind, Vader pulls away from the mist, ever so slightly. It is like he can breath on his own again—as though he is tasting the first breath of air in twenty years that hasn’t cycled through countless filters and mechanisms before reaching his lungs.

Obi-Wan is still talking. “For years I believed you fell because I had been too lenient, too blinded by my own emotions to show you the proper way.” The Jedi master pauses. “But seeing Luke, I understand the opposite to be true. His emotions are no danger to the light in him. In fact, it is his love, his passion, which has given it so much strength. I realize now that you fell not because you let your hatred consume you, Anakin, but because you failed to see the love in those around you.”

Vader feels something, singing to him in the Force. He realizes with some shock that it is the Force bond he and Obi-Wan shared as master and padawan, broken long ago and heavy with disuse, but there all the same.

“I am more sorry than I can ever say that I didn’t let you see how much I loved you.”

The man across from the ghost looks up. “Obi-Wan?” Though the clipped mechanical voice has not changed, it is not Darth Vader who speaks.

Obi-Wan smiles—it’s wide and lights up his whole face. “Anakin.” The word is washed in relief.

No sooner has the name fallen from Obi-Wan’s lips though, than the cord snaps. The mist fades, obscured by images of Palpatine, his face scarred and mutilated, the scattered corpses of younglings littering the floor of the Jedi temple, Padmé’s body swathed in a dark blue cloak, shrouded in white flowers—stars in the night sky—her stomach still swollen. Luke’s face contorted in confusion and pain as he tumbled down the chute on Cloud City. Obi-Wan, surrounded by smoke and fire, his auburn hair tossed by the wind and his forehead slick with sweat.

Vader is back. He let outs a howl of pain. Even the mechanical quality of the voice modulator is unable to mask the animalism of it. The room lights up as streaks of lightning explode from the Sith, hitting the walls and frying all the electronics. For a moment, the two of them are lost in darkness until the back-up lights flicker on.

When the smoke from the smoldering control panels clears, Obi-Wan still stands before Vader. There is a sadness in him which seems to shimmer with the translucence of his body—permeating his very atoms. But there’s something light there as well. A sad, half-smile is on his face. “It is not your time yet, my friend.”

Before Vader can respond, Obi-Wan fades. In a moment, he is gone and Vader is alone.

Vader breathes in and out—the sound echoing in the empty room. He moves to leave, but just as reaches the door, he hears Obi-Wan once more, this time the old master’s words ringing in his head:

“But there will be a day when we embrace as brothers again.”


End file.
